Category Archives: Stuff that was made

For some crazy reason I started collecting minion toys from McDonald’s Happy Meals years ago… maybe it has something to do with the way I feel in this work-a-day world we live in? Maybe because I feel like I needed a minion army of my own to order around? Maybe I just couldn’t stand to see those banana-yellow faces staring up at me from the 10 cent basket at the thrift store?

I had always planned on making some type of art installation with all of these little buddies, but they just kept piling up. This year, I finally did something with (at least some of) them. I used the smallest drill bit I own to make holes in their shiny (and sometimes bumpy) little heads. Then I turned in some screw hooks and added them to our holiday tree. I’ve still got a tonne left. Maybe someday they will end up somewhere more glamorous, but this will do for now.

This creature was an experiment in techniques for making altered stuffies that I completed over a year ago, but never documented until now.

Upsy Daisy is a character from the BBC children’s show In the Night Garden. This modification included fastening a circuit board on her back, integrating a wire into her head, adding an additional character on the end of her arm, giving her a Batman disguise and attaching a hotel room key card to the top of her head. There wasn’t a rhyme or reason to the modifications, I was just trying things out.

The family tried some Easter egg creations this week. We were going to try some natural dyes, but opted for the quicker food colouring route, and we used some wax from a soy candle as a resist on some. It worked fairly well, but as you can see from my attempts, a finer brush and a steadier hand could have done better. We emptied the eggs of their contents first by using a push pin on either end to make holes, then blowing out the contents, filling with water and rinsing… not the easiest thing to do, but it worked. We sealed the openings with a bit of wax to hopefully keep any residue inside.